Month: August 2026

The Lagos Zonal Directorate of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has recovered 2.3 million litres of Automotive Gas Oil valued at N4.485 billion from Mamemo Ibru of Ibafon Oil and Gas, following an investigation into alleged stealing and criminal conversion. The recovery traces back to a petition filed by Prudent Energy and Services Limited, which accused Ibafon Oil and Gas of unlawfully converting petroleum products entrusted to it for storage, leaving a gaping shortfall in the company’s stock. The petitioner claimed periodic withdrawals had been made from its reserves until the outstanding balance climbed to 2,574,031 litres. A physical measurement and reconciliation exercise later found only 206,761 litres left in the storage tanks, a deficit of 2,367,270 litres. Investigators found that Ibafon Oil and Gas both trades in AGO and stores its own products at the same depot alongside stock belonging to its customers, a setup that allegedly gave Ibru room to exploit the arrangement. The Commission’s findings suggest Ibru used his position as owner of Ibafon Oil and Gas to truck out petroleum products beyond what the company actually owned, effectively helping himself to the petitioner’s reserves. Following EFCC’s intervention, the suspect has handed over the recovered products to Prudent Energy and Services Limited. By Asiwaju Adekunle Saheed

The Federal Government has soft launched the Government Service Portal, a single digital gateway letting Nigerians access multiple public services through one secure login, built by Galaxy Backbone in partnership with the Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy and the Korea International Cooperation Agency. The portal allows citizens to sign in using their National Identification Number or verified business credentials, doing away with the need to juggle separate accounts across government websites.  Officials say the platform, tested across all six geopolitical zones and the Federal Capital Territory, will keep expanding as more ministries, departments and agencies come on board, with plans to add email and WhatsApp verification during the pilot phase. Permanent Secretary Nadungu Gagare, represented by Director of e Government Johnson Bareyi, said the goal is to cut service delays, reduce duplication and boost transparency and accountability nationwide.  Around the same period, the Federal Government inaugurated a High Level Inter Ministerial Platform on Family Planning, Health, Human Capital and National Development in Abuja. Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Professor Muhammad Ali Pate, said Nigeria’s population must be deliberately turned into a productive resource rather than left to become a liability. Pate announced plans for Nigeria’s first local production of family planning commodities through a partnership with Bayer, arguing it would cut import dependence, create jobs and strengthen local pharmaceutical manufacturing. He also called for a stronger role for the National Orientation Agency in building public awareness and pushing back against health misinformation. Together, the two announcements point to a government leaning harder on digital infrastructure and coordinated planning to tackle service delivery gaps and a fast growing population projected to nearly double by mid century. By Asiwaju Adekunle Saheed

The Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, has reaffirmed the Federal Government’s commitment to building a secure and credible information environment ahead of the 2027 general elections, speaking at the 8th Public Lecture and Awards of Excellence organised by Blueprint Newspapers in Abuja. Idris said election integrity is shaped long before voting day, resting on the security environment, institutional credibility, the conduct of political actors and the quality of information reaching citizens. He pledged that the Tinubu administration would keep mobilising resources and technology to confront terrorism, banditry and kidnapping threatening public safety. The Minister flagged the rising danger of misinformation and disinformation, warning that fast advancing artificial intelligence now makes it easy to fabricate convincing audio, video and images. He said democracy cannot survive deliberate deception, pointing to the newly established International Media and Information Literacy Institute in Abuja, set up with UNESCO, as a countermeasure. Guest speaker, Defence Minister General Christopher Musa, represented by Major General O.T. Akinjobi, argued that election security has outgrown the old idea of guarding polling units alone. He said protecting democratic legitimacy now means confronting cyber interference and disinformation through intelligence led planning, stronger cybersecurity and closer agency coordination. Chairman of the occasion and former Zamfara governor, Senator Abdul’Aziz Yari Abubakar, warned against turning insecurity into a political bargaining chip, insisting political leaders, communities and citizens must all share the burden alongside security agencies. The lecture drew a heavy turnout of governors, ministers and traditional rulers, underlining how seriously Abuja is treating the run up to 2027 as both a security and information challenge. By Asiwaju Adekunle Saheed

A Senate delegation led by Senator Abdulrahman Kawu Sumaila, Chairman of the Committee on Petroleum Resources Downstream and lawmaker for Kano South, visited the Nigeria Immigration Service headquarters in Abuja on a fact finding mission over the relocation of passport production to a centralised facility. The Comptroller General, KN Nandap, represented by Deputy Comptroller General Franca Nwanneka, received the delegation alongside members of NIS top management. The visit was triggered by concerns raised by constituents and other Nigerians about the shift of passport printing away from local offices to the centralised hub in Abuja. Service officials used the meeting to walk the lawmakers through the reasoning behind the changeover, citing tighter security, the elimination of sharp practices along the processing chain and improved efficiency, transparency and accountability. Officials assured the delegation that every passport centre nationwide remains fully operational, with application submission, enrolment and biometric capture continuing as normal. The Service explained that the migration is happening in phases, both within Nigeria and at missions abroad, as part of a broader reform of passport administration championed by the Ministry of Interior. Senator Sumaila said he was satisfied with the explanations given and praised the reform, crediting the leadership of Minister of Interior Dr Olubunmi Tunji Ojo and the Comptroller General of Immigration. He pledged the National Assembly’s backing to see the initiative through. The exchange offers some reassurance to Nigerians worried that passport services near them could disappear, even as the country consolidates its production system in the capital. By Asiwaju Adekunle Saheed

Nigeria will switch on a new alphanumeric digital postcode system on October 1, 2026, assigning a unique, machine-readable address to every building in the country, including homes in rural communities that have never had a formal address. Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Bosun Tijani, disclosed the launch date while briefing President Bola Tinubu on the ministry’s flagship digital infrastructure projects. He said the system, approved by the Federal Executive Council earlier this year, will place Nigeria among a small group of countries using the advanced addressing technology worldwide. Unlike the old six-digit numeric postcodes introduced in the 1980s, which covered broad postal zones such as 100001 for Lagos Island, the new framework uses GIS mapping to assign precise codes to individual buildings, working even without internet access. Tijani said the absence of a reliable addressing system has long slowed emergency response, complicated deliveries and raised the cost of doing business, a gap the Postmaster General of the Nigerian Postal Service, Tola Odeyemi, estimated costs the economy between 50 billion and 80 billion naira annually in misdirected deliveries alone. Officials expect the system to strengthen national security coordination, speed up e commerce and logistics, and support emergency services, with the first states to be covered announced at launch before nationwide expansion continues into 2027. By Asiwaju Adekunle Saheed

The Federal Government has added 208 megawatts of bulk transmission capacity to the national grid following the commissioning of two newly upgraded substations in Lagos, a move officials say will strengthen electricity supply to some of the country’s busiest commercial and industrial corridors. The Minister of Power, Joseph Tegbe, inaugurated the projects on Monday at Ijora and Apapa Road, describing them as more than engineering feats and calling Apapa one of the commanding heights of the Nigerian economy. At the Ijora Transmission Substation, two new 100MVA transformers lifted installed capacity from 90MVA to 230MVA, adding 112MW to the network. At Apapa Road, a new Gas Insulated Substation replaced an ageing outdoor transformer that had served as a stopgap since the original 1985 facility was decommissioned, adding another 96MW and tripling that site’s capacity from 60MVA to 180MVA. The Managing Director of the Transmission Company of Nigeria, Sule Ahmed Abdulaziz, said the upgrades would increase the volume of bulk power available to the Eko Electricity Distribution Company for onward supply to Apapa Causeway, Ijora, Amukoko, Ajegunle, Apapa Wharf, Tin Can Island and other commercial zones. The Ijora project was funded by the World Bank while the Apapa upgrade was backed by the Japan International Cooperation Agency, both executed in partnership with TCN. Tegbe linked the intervention to President Bola Tinubu’s ambition of building a one trillion-dollar economy, and said the ministry plans to commission twenty transmission projects nationwide before the end of the year, with a target of wheeling 6,000 megawatts comfortably to the grid by December. By Asiwaju Adekunle Saheed